Gravity Keeps Pulling Me Back
by Wanting Memories
Summary: *Unlikely to finish due to original story with Similar premise. Might publish.* It has been for two years. The well. Broken. Everything and everyone is affected by gravitational pulls, how far will she go to get back the bond she thought she had lost?
1. The Years Without

A/N: New story! Yay! Well, I must say that I got this idea from my "Cosmic Concepts" class, but any otherlikenessto my professor, class,and college, etc. are purely coincidence. Nothing else. I must also say, that I am pretty damn proud of this one and I am going to take my time on it. One day, I may publish a novelalong the same basis. (With different characters obviously because I don't own _Inuyasha_. Yay! A disclaimer!)

Just so the "Dreams" fans know, I will be working on that more intensely than this. "Dreams" is my priority now because it is closer to being done and because I started it first. I have put off posting a few stories so that I could keep my sights on that one, but I feel this one needed posted now. It will probably be better written (considering I had a general plan for how it would end _before_ I started it), unlike "Dreams" which originally was intended to be a one-shot.

Anyway, those of you who liked "Dreams" will probably like this one too, and those of you who didn't like "Dreams" may like this one anyway. It is a different food group.

Thanks for the continued support! Don't forget to review and criticize. ;)

* * *

She lifted her head from where it rested on her wrist. A red print was left on her cheek from her snooze and her eyes were bleary. Hair mussed, and skin pale, Kagome blinked at her professor and watched his hand arch across the chalkboard, leaving white streaks which vaguely reminded her of words. She was sure she had seen these characters before, but she couldn't seem to recall what they meant. Nothing clicked over in her mind to help her recognize the strange writings, so she gave up reading it and dropped her forehead back onto her lab table in exhaustion. It didn't really matter anyway; her scholarship would never hold up for next semester with her current grades, and she had no motivation to even try to salvage them. She _should_ care. She should have a reason to get an education now. She certainly had the time for it now. No more journeys, no more missions into the feudal era. She needed an education to get anywhere in her time, unlike when she was on the other side of the well. She was a priestess there, a miko. There would have been no worries if she didn't go to college, she could just work with Kaede and Miroku then come home to visit. She had never really _planned_ that when she was younger, but it made sense. Perfect sense. That way she would be able to continue both lives, on both sides of the well.

But the well no longer worked. That had been over and done with for nearly two years and she _had_ gone to college and she was flunking out miserably. The work really wasn't hard. Not really. It was the getting out of bed in the mornings to get to class, which was the problem. It had become worse within the past year, and she had really gone downhill in just this semester. She thought she was supposed to be getting over the grieving stage, not falling deeper into it. She had always been a stronger person; even in her darkest nights she had been able to find a reason to go on. When her father died, she survived. When she was lost in the cave with Kikyo she never gave up, even when Kikyo did. No matter how many blows she had taken from Inuyasha's insults, she had always come back for more. No matter how many times she saw him run off to look for Kikyo, always she would return. She was simply a person who would not go down easily.

But there was nothing for her. She hadn't found any reason, any hope to struggle through this, and she had searched. For a while, the hopes of the well suddenly working again kept her bright-eyed and alert. Then, she took this class in a last attempt to at least prove to her that it would never open. She wanted to know exactly why it _had_ worked, and why she should stop dreaming that it ever would again. At least if she flunked out, she might find some reason to try again, or more likely a reason to forget. At the age of twenty, Kagome could see no place for her in this world. She had been touched, by something more that she had gambled for while in the other dimension of time. Something that would never let her fit in with any crowd in her world again. Before when she had her friends, she was able to live with that, enjoy it even. She was unique and special. Not anymore. No longer.

Just stain, that's all she was now. There was nothing unique about her. She had given up her miko studies when she had no one to learn from, and though she probably could have continued on her own, the passion wasn't there. Without the passion there was no power. Her power came directly from her emotions. Her determination, stubbornness, strength, compassion, kindness, and love…love…all fueled her abilities and her desire to practice them.

The class was a science class—a physics class—a subject she had never been interested in before. The class was a "no math" physics class, which was the first attribute that called her attention. It was called "Cosmic Concepts," and she heard through the grapevine that the professor was brilliant but insane. The later interested her more. Hell, her whole life from the age of fifteen until that well closed off was insane. Maybe a lunatic would have the answers.

Professor Gawa-guchi was the name of the man who taught the class. He was in his mid-to-late forties and wore his graying hair in a low tight ponytail. A small pair of rimless spectacles sat high on his nose to aid him when he read the textbook. Other than that, they sat perched atop his head, forgotten. Kagome found slight interest in this man. His name meant "river mouth" and she found that he was indeed a river mouth. The man loved to talk about everything; he seemed to be well learned in almost any field. His face was carved and his eyes were always open wide, so he looked more like a foreigner, like a Native American, rather than like his Japanese heritage. His nose was much larger, and more curved downward than anyone else she had ever met. In his youth, Kagome's old school friend Yuka would have called him handsome, in an intense way that is. He never wore a tie, but always kept his dress-shirt tucked cleanly into a pair of dark gray jeans. He wore an old brown suit jacket only to staff meetings and outside to protect against the elements. Black hiking boots constantly adorned his feet, and Kagome wondered if he ever heard complaints from his department chair about his casual wardrobe. She assumed so, but also assumed that he probably did not care too much.

In her first class with the odd man, he went over the syllabus and class conduct. Before he went over the attendance policy and the test schedule, he calmly stood on his desk. A wave of whispers swept over the students and Kagome saw that the tall professor towering over her nearly had to duck to avoid the ceiling. He loomed over his class and waited for everyone's attention to quiet and stay on him.

"Can anyone tell me what I am doing?" He had a deep penetrating voice that reaching to the back of the classroom easily and resounded off the walls to echo in Kagome's ears.

A young man in the front raised his hand. He was the one who had brought every book to class and had already highlighted and made notes on the first two chapters of each. He wore a white dress shirt, and a navy sweeter-vest with khaki dress pants. His career ambition was to move to America after college and win The Nobel Prize. That was it, no particular job, just to win The Prize.

Gawa-guchi nodded to the boy and the young student sat up straighter in his desk. "Well," he began with a squeak and a blush, "you're standing on your desk." He looked very satisfied with himself.

The professor nodded again and rubbed his chin as he asked, "Yes, but why am I standing on my desk?"

The boy looked utterly puzzled. "Because…" he swallowed, "you are trying to prove a point?"

Gawa-guchi glanced around the room. "Can anyone please tell me why I am standing on my desk? What is my point?"

The class grew silent. Small snickers that had been evident before, cut off. Kagome pushed back her recently cut short hair and dared to move.

He saw her small, pale hand rise up from the back of the room. "Yes?"

"You're trying to prove that we don't know what you are doing. Because we can't just look at you and analyze your intentions through what we see and think as fact." Kagome felt her mind say _duh_!

The professor jumped off the desk and landed evenly on his feet, without taking his eyes off her. "This young lady," he gestured to where Kagome sat, "is absolutely correct."

Whispers were heard throughout the room again, and the boy in the sweater-vest blushed deeply.

"Math is a wonderful tool for finding out what things are doing and how they are doing it," he walked over to the chalkboard. "This," he scratched a formula in chalk, "is the formula for the velocity of the revolution of the Earth around the Sun. This tells you exactly how fast we are moving through space. But, why are we?"

"Because of gravity," a girl called out from beside Kagome.

"That is the how and the what, not the _why_." The class looked perplexed. "Math can show us what we are doing and how we are doing it. You could have come up with the angle I was standing in compared to the desk. You could have measured my mass and the desk's mass to prove that it was possible for me to stand on it without it breaking. But you couldn't pull a calculator out and tell me _why_ I was doing it." He sat on his desk. "This class is about the why, the big picture. Mathematicians have a tendency to look too close at a problem, and never see why it is there, or how it affects things around it." He shifted his weight and ran his palm over his forehead. "In this class, I want you to stop zooming in on the little details; I want you to see the big picture. You can't measure and calculate the big picture. And without knowing the big picture, there is no reason to find the small details. Unless, you _like_ making formulas in your spare time." He glanced at the boy in the sweater-vest. "I was standing on the desk because it made you all think. That is why I did it and why it affected you."

Kagome knew she would like the class from the first day. Well, that is she would normally be intrigued by the discussions, but she felt very little interest in anything anymore. She was _sleeping_ in the most interesting class she had ever been involved with, and didn't care. _Well, its not like I sleep in the dorm anyway. _She pondered her roommate who was constantly coming and going at all hours of the night. She had been stuck with a freshman who was very interested in two things: sorority parties and her lacrosse-playing boyfriend. In fact, Kagome had trouble sleeping often at night because her roommate's boyfriend liked to pay late night visits. _Noisy_ late night visits.

Kagome would move out, but she had no energy to get a job to pay for rent unless she absolutely had to, and she couldn't go home. She only attended college about an hour away from her old home, but couldn't stay very long at the Sunset Shrine. She walked by the broken well too often. Sota needed her guidance less and less each year, preferring to talk in confidence with his buddies on his soccer team or with his numerous female admirers. He had nearly forgotten what the white-haired boy from the past had meant to him…had nearly forgotten the strong bond he once shared with his older sister. Her mother worried about her—a great deal in fact—and Kagome could no longer raise her head to look in her mother's eyes. She preferred to e-mail and have the phone call every two weeks, rather than speaking and visiting with her in person. It was much easier to hide behind the Internet and phone lines. Her mother knew this and allowed her the space she needed, hoping it would do better for her than pressuring her to come home. Her grandfather, as usual, was oblivious to the situation. He simply thought she was one busy girl, and assumed that Buyo's avoidance of Kagome when she came home was simply because she smelled too much like dorm room smells. Kagome knew better. The old friendly cat avoided her because she was no longer the girl he treasured as a child and teenager. That girl was gone, and fading fast.

Besides the fact that she hated to feel her heart weep (and more recently just ice-over with numbness), Kagome always felt like she was being pulled to the well. Like little hands were always gently tugging on her heartstrings. This used to disturb her and make her break down into sobs. But, then one day when she walked by it, she didn't feel anything. She stopped, expecting the tugging sensation to occur, but felt nothing. She turned her head in the direction of the well house and felt utterly _nothing_. This feeling, this loss of connection, was ultimately what killed her hopes. That was when she finally felt her soul crumble and lay in pieces at the bottom of her bowels. She had gone home once since then, and did _not_ walk past the well house and did _not_ walk past the God Tree. She walked around the entire shrine grounds, avoiding them.

As far as her thoughts of her friends and Inuyasha went, she just didn't engage in that area of her mind if possible. It sat there, all her memories in a box with a dust covering in the back of her mind labeled "Lost." She didn't peek into that box anymore, and if anything happened to fall out of it when she went through the general shuffle of her thoughts, she picked the memory up and shoved it back in without looking at it. But, there were still times when she couldn't help but notice something that reminded her of her friends. A jingle from a young man twirling his set of car keys around his index finger always made her stop short, and search the parking lot for a young monk dressed in dark purples. Anytime she saw a boomerang or pink eye shadow she missed Sango's comforting words. She had joined the dance club at her school to stay fit (in case the well opened back up, of course), but couldn't take seeing the longhaired women in the black full-body leotards they were required to wear. Every time she saw a foreign student studying abroad, especially with red curly hair, she could almost hear Shippo's voice crying for her to come back. When she went to see a play that the drama department was performing, she nearly leapt onto the stage crying when a young man came out with a long white wig and red haori. Pushing her back and shoulders against the backrest of her seat, she had to grip the armrests and pin her feet under the seat in front of her so she could control herself until intermission, when she ran back to her dorm. There was even an old priestess at the shrine on campus that wore the traditional miko garb.

So what had she been searching for by adding her name to the roster of this class? Closure? Was that what her problem was? Was that what she needed to continue living?

"…and everything has its own gravitational pull." Kagome lifted her head back up to study her professor. He sat casually on the edge of his desk as usual, and glanced across the room. His eyes stopped on Kagome, seemingly surprised that she had returned to the crowd of the living. He liked her; Kagome knew that. He found her interesting and very bright, but he also saw that she was slowly shriveling up. He hated to see such an insightful young person give up on life so soon. Kagome knew all of this, and for some reason, he had been the only person who had kept her afloat…for a while.

Kagome blinked the sleep out of her eyes. She tucked her grown-out bangs behind her ears and adjusted her wrinkled blouse. _Everything has its own gravitational pull._ Kagome stiffened, hand frozen on her stomach where she had been fighting the folds of fabric. _What?_

Gawa-guchi saw her stand up straight in her seat from the back of the classroom. As long as he had known her, her eyes were always foggy. He new she wasn't into drugs, but that didn't mean what he saw there was any less real. He saw her stand and her eyes suddenly snap into focus, becoming sharp and glossy. Although still low and tired in their relationship to the rest of her face, her eyes had changed her whole appearance. She was much more vibrant and young as she stood before him, though her external features still held the old worn look. And he had never seen her stand so tall.

"What?" Kagome's voice cracked as it left her throat. She had been silent in this class after the first day and she felt the entire body of students occupying the room turn in their seats to see the strange, normally quiet girl behind them. "What did you say?"

Gawa-guchi stared at her for a moment, then snapped himself back like an actor who just realized he had been given his cue line. "Ah," he shifted. "Everything has its own gravity. I do, you do. Mount Everest does. You are being pulled by my gravity, and I am being pulled by yours."

Kagome leaned forward, supporting her weight with her right hand on the desk. "Everything?"

He looked perplexed that she seemed so lost in this concept. "Yes, things with more mass have a greater pull. That is why the Earth holds us to itself. And, the closer two objects are together, the stronger the force of the pull."

Kagome was getting breathy and her cheeks were gaining color. She began to gasp for air. "Everything?" she asked again between two harsh breaths.

Her professor searched her face out of worry. "Yes, everything…" He got up and began to walk down the aisle to her desk. "Are you okay, Kagome?"

Kagome didn't even hear his question. "Does mass have to be physical? I mean…" she gasp between words, "…could it be emotion that takes up mass? Or someone's soul?"

Gawa-guchi was with her, patting her gently on the back. "I…I don't think I understand," he chanted distractedly.

"Can you have a mass of emotion that would make an object that isn't very big have a strong pull on you?" She stared into his eyes, waiting for an answer.

"Kagome," he was worried and put his arm around her to support her slumping figure. "Let me get you to the infirmary."

Kagome closed her eyes, shook her head, and ground her teeth. "Damn it, just tell me!"

Gawa-guchi began to lift her into his arms, to carry her to the nurse. "I don't know," he added, frantic to calm her before she fainted. "No one knows what matter is made up of. We know that neutrons and protons make up atoms, that is as small as our knowledge gets." He walked her out of the classroom, as a girl opened the door for him and another larger boy followed to help, if needed. "We don't know what those are made up of. I supposed it is possible for them to be formed out of emotions."

Kagome felt herself fading, but she had gotten what she needed out of Gawa-guchi for now. _That pull,_ she thought. _No wonder it was so strong! We must still be connected. _She drifted into the fainting spell Gawa-guchi had been worried about, and dreamed about a large thread tugging on her heart, pulling her back into the working well. Her dream only lost its splendor, when she remembered that she hadn't felt that familiar tug on her heartstrings that guided her to the well for nearly a year.


	2. Old Friends

"What do you mean a mythology book?" Gawa-guchi scratched the back of his head, just above his ponytail. Kagome was beginning to believe that her professor was not as eccentric as she had been told. Really, the man was just as confused as any sane human would be with what just took place. First, he sees a student who rarely talks jump up in class and demand to know whether emotion can take up mass. Then, the student faints on the way to the infirmary, and when she wakes up ten minutes later, she demands for a mythology book. I mean, what nut _wouldn't_ understand her?

Kagome scotched forward on the cot she had awaken on. She felt like her head was spinning and her thoughts were flying in a million directions. She was sure she would lose all concentration on her breakthrough if she didn't write something down, and she did not want to risk it. This may be the last hope—the only hope she had at getting her life back—no matter how bizarre it sounded. She needed a pen, that's all, she would write her information on her arm if she had to.

"I need a pen, and a piece of paper if possible." Kagome swung her legs over the side of the cot and flung herself into an up-right stance. "Please I need a pen."

Gawa-guchi shook his head. "Kagome, I don't know what to do. How can I know how to help you? Your thoughts are so random." He began to search his shirt pockets for a ballpoint to calm down the girl who was frantically searching for a writing utensil.

She turned around to face him with her eyes alert and fiery. "I _know_ my thoughts are random. That's exactly _why_ I need to write it down before I forget!" She felt her voice growl at the man sitting on the stool by her cot. It was sheer panic. She knew he didn't deserve this treatment, but she had no way of calming herself down now. Not with the threat of losing all that she had just gotten back.

"Fine, fine," he handed her a pen from his shirt pocket. "Just calm down please, before you give yourself an aneurysm." Kagome snatched the pen from is grip and began to scrawl barely ledgible words on her inner arm. Every line she formed with the pen, caused a red scratch to appear under it, but she hardly noticed. She _had_ to get it down on something before she forgot. She could not _afford_ to forget. Only when on her last sentence she scratched herself so deeply that small blood drops welled up, did Gawa-guchi pull her hand away and pocket his pen. Who knew what this girl was going to do with the pen if he didn't take it away from her?

Having completed her most immediate task, Kagome let her body collapse back onto the cot and closed her eyes. She was breathing heavily and she felt terrible, like she had run twenty miles, but for the first time in a year, she was beginning to feel like things were falling back into place. Everything still looked like a Picasso painting, but now she could make out that one square with a line attached to it formed the image of a key. She couldn't see the door, nor could she even fully see the key, but _something_ in her huge jumbled world made sense.

Gawa-guchi leaned over his student in concern. A smile gently lay on her face, something he had never seen on this particular girl before. "Kagome," he whispered. "Higurashi?"

"The book…" Kagome's eyes slide open halfway. "Just please bring me the book." Her eyelids falling into place cut off her gaze. A small quiet snore began to course out of her mouth, and Gawa-guchi took that as his cue to leave. Pushing his stool away from the cot, he bent his knees to stand but stopped short when he saw the scribbles on her hand. He leaned forward and dropped his glasses over his eyes to make out the scrawl.

"inuyashas gravity pulled on me and

thats why i felt the pull and maybe why

the well worked because he is so big on mass because his power.

we are still connected somehow and maybe he came through

the well looking for me

and that is why there was no more pull back to the well

a year ago. maybe can find him maybe can get my life

back"

Gawa-guchi adjusted his spectacles to confirm what he had read. What? He leaned forward and read her arm again. Inuyasha? He straightened his posture and cleared his throat. Sliding his glasses back atop his head, he rubbed his eyes and shook his head. Inuyasha, no she must have miss-wrote that. The girl was very disturbed right now by something having to do with what he said in class. Very little of what she had written on her arm made any sense to him, but maybe he just couldn't understand he broken phrases. Maybe what she wrote actually was perfectly logical. Maybe not.

Should I get the book? He pondered whether it would do any harm or any good. No, he decided and turned to walk out of the small room with the two cots in it. No, it would just aggravate her more. She didn't need that; she had already fainted just from the information he gave her in class. There was no telling what would happen if he humored her and retrieved a mythology book. Besides, if she really was that determined to get it, she would get it once she woke up anyway. There was absolutely no reason on Earth why he should help excite the poor girl. None. Zip, end of story.

Turning the door handle to latch it shut behind his retreating form, he heard a small sigh from Kagome which made him turn to look back at her. She was dozing lightly and peacefully with a soft smile still spread over her features. Gawa-guchi mentally whacked himself in the back of the head. Stupid, you have never seen this girl smile until now. You have never seen this girl's eyes so alert as right before she fell asleep just now. He pressed his palm to his eyes. Stupid. He was going to go to the campus library and look for a mythology book for her. He was probably even going to end up bringing back several for her to choose from. He was probably not even going to stop by his classroom to dismiss his students and pick up his jacket before he made the trip to find the books.

Gawa-guchi sighed and closed the door behind him. He probably wouldn't even call his wife and let her know he would be home late because he was helping an insane student buff up on her mythology and gravity studies.

"Great," he sighed has he left the campus medical center through glass doors. "On the way home I had better pick up some roses so Hitomi won't be too upset." Sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans, he trudged toward the library at a decent pace. He must have either miss-read her writing, or she added an extra line to the character or didn't add enough. He had never heard the name Inuyasha before, except—

"Watch it buddy," a gruff voice seemed to growl at him. A student he didn't recognize jogged past him on the narrow sidewalk leading to Gawa-guchi's destination.

"Oh," Gawa-guchi felt slightly flustered. "I apologize. My fault for not watching."

The student turned his blue eyes in the professor's direction. "No big deal, man. Just keep alert for the rest of the track team headed up behind me. They don't really look to see who they're gonna run over." With that, the boy with the long black ponytail took off in a sprint, leaving behind a trail of dust.

"Hmm…" Gawa-guchi shoved his hands deeper into his jeans. "Must be a study-abroad student." He absently began to pick up the pace in the last few meters before he entered the library. Taking two steps at a time, he pounded up to the doorway and ran face-first into a collogue of his.

"Excuse me," Gawa-guchi stepped back and dusted the wrinkles out of his shirt.

His old friend and co-worker laughed and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Quite alright, Jenjenji. Quite alright." The man was a stout, sturdy looking man with red hair who was head of the English department. He actually was born in London, but moved to Japan in his early thirties with his pregnant wife. Nigel Jennings was his name, and English was his game, as the old bat himself would say.

"Nigel, how have you been? Haven't seen you for a while." Jenjenji Gawa-guchi smiled and slight creases splayed out from the corners of his eyes.

Jennings laughed heartily and reached behind him. When he pulled his hand out, a boy with orange-red hair just like Nigel was attached. "Jenjenji, this is my son. I don't believe you have met Shippo."

Gawa-guchi crouched down to look the youngster square in the face. "Hey there, how old are you then?"

Shippo clutched his father's pant-leg and turned his blue eyes away from the man. In a small, shy voice the child responded "Eight."

"Wow! Eight! My nephew is only seven now. You're really getting to be the man of the house, huh?" Shippo's proud smile was enough of an answer for Gawa-guchi.

Nigel chuckled. "Well, we just came by to get this guy a book on dinosaurs he needs for a class project."

Gawa-guchi nodded. "You like dinosaurs?"

Shippo's eyes lit up. "Yeah! I like the raptors!"

"Those were always my favorite too."

Nigel looked at his watch and sighed. "Sorry to interrupt this, but the wife is expecting me home early tonight." He leaned into his friend to whisper. "It's our anniversary, and I need to drop Shippo off with the sitter before five."

"I heard that!" Shippo chimed in defiantly. "I don't want to go! All he does is talk on the phone to girls. It's no fun!"

Nigel sighed again and leaned down to his son. "Yes, but you have a project to work on and I couldn't get anyone else to baby-sit you. You scared them all away."

Shippo turned away and crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, maybe I don't need a baby-sitter. I'm not a baby anymore," he gestured to Gawa-guchi. "I'm almost the man of the house!"

"Yes, and every man needs a side-kick, and Miroku is yours." His father shifted uncomfortably. "Besides, he's the care-taker for the campus shrine. He's one of the most trust-worthy people I know his age. And if he ever did anything not very trust-worthy, I'd know immediately because I'm in the loop."

Gawa-guchi knew Miroku and had to agree with Shippo. The boy was relentless in his chasing after the girls. But, he also had to agree with Nigel. Miroku, over-all was a pretty decent guy.

"Well, you better get going." Gawa-guchi stretched his hand out to the door handle. "See you later, Nigel. Nice meeting you, Shippo." He was stepping into the library as soon as his friend got the word "bye" out before continuing his discussion with his son.

"Whew," he let out a sigh and flopped down into one of the computer desks at the front lobby. The digital car-catalogue was the best invention in all of library history next to the books, he believed.

A small search window popped up once he moved the mouse to cancel the screen-saver. He typed in "mythology" and clicked "search." He drummed his fingers over the mouse pad as he waited for the slow connection to boot him to a page. _I wonder how mother's doing, _he thought to himself about her old botanical shop. A slight "click" was heard as his page popped into view. _Let's see…_ Gawa-guchi scrolled down. "Greek Mythology." _Don't think she wanted that._ "Chinese Myhology." "African Mythology," "Norse Mythology," and "Indian Mythology." _What kind does she want? I was just assuming old Japanese legends and such._ "Asian Mythology," "Celtic Mythology," "Japanese Mythology."

"Yup, let's do that." He clicked on the link and drummed his fingers again waiting for the slow connection. "La de da."

The page opened and he scrolled down the list of Japanese Mythology books. "Stories from Ancient Japan to Modern Day," _maybe_. "The Warring States Era: A Journey Through Make-Believe and Cultures," _hmmm…_ "The Un-mother: Legends of Sorrow-Born Demons." _That sounds promising._ "Legend of the Fire-Rat and Princess Kaguya." _Don't think that would help Kagome._ Then Gawa-guchi found a novelette. _"Lost Fang,"_ by Kaoru Oshima. Gawa-guchi scratched his head just above his ponytail. He didn't know why he stopped to read the summery of this particular novelette, but he flipped down his glasses and scrolled to just below the title. "Inuyasha, the half-demon befriended by a girl from the future, relies on his father's fang to protect humans and conquer the infamous Naraku. In the form of a sword, the fang becomes his only salvation from a world of violence and death. When the fang is lost after the strange girl from the future mysteriously disappears, what is to become of the half-demon's heart when his demon blood consumes him?" Gawa-guchi wrinkled his nose. Sounded like a stupid melodramatic fairy-tale to him, but apparently in 1976 the critics loved it. "Excellent…it kept me reading through the night!" "Such a new author with fresh ideas…it is amazing how original this piece of work is!" "_Lost Fang_ will make your blood boil and your adrenalin surge!" "Oshima has managed to combine ancient legend with edge-of-your-seat-modern story-telling…there is no telling how far this young writer will go, except to say that he will indeed go far!"

Apparently however, the promising young writer did not go on with his career as an author as the critics hoped. Shortly after the publication of _Lost Fang_, Oshima died in a marijuana-related car accident. The young, promising author was the stoned-out driver, and the only fatality. Gawa-guchi couldn't help but feel sorry for the man. He was just starting a bold career, his parents must have been proud of him. Then zilch, his life was over, and probably from celebrating about his new successful book. Well, that was his prerogative, and he paid the consequences for it. Gawa-guchi for one, had no desire to find out how is feels to have your head smashed into your steering wheel.

After printing off the call numbers for the books "Stories from Ancient Japan to Modern Day," "The Un-mother: Legends of Sorrow-Born Demons," and _Lost Fang_, Gawa-guchi picked up the books and checked them out on his faculty library card.

As he walked out of the library doors, he spotted the young track student he almost bumped into before. The boy waved at him, then dashed along the sidewalk to where ever his destination was. Gawa-guchi waved in response, though he thought his reaction was too late and the boy probably missed his motion in his run.

He glanced down at the small stack of books in his hands. _Hitomi is going to me fuming at me when I finally get home tonight._

* * *

A/N: I never thought I would do a fanfic about the Inuyasha gang being rencarnated in modernday Japan. I just never had the desire...But where is Inuyasha? Has he been reborn too? Da da da...And who was that track dude (hehe that one was for AnimeGirl622). Oh, and did you notice the professor's first name? Yup that wasn't by accedent.


	3. A Strange Song

A/N: This story requires some more research than all of my others. Here's a little dish for those who missed my updates though. Thanks again all.

* * *

"Two lifetimes apart you fell into my heart to mend me…" The young man sat in his small wooden chair, strumming on his guitar and listening to the rain pattering against his window that over-looked a park. A band-aid covered his left index finger, protecting a fast-growing callus from his newly learned obsession with the instrument. He had been given the old acoustic by his mother when he was about seven, which had been purchased from a flea market. She had played the guitar in her hippy days and seemed delighted to have found such a unique gift for her son. The guitar that he held to him was worn, there was no arguing that, but it had been well cared for. It was shiny from polish and human caresses, and the dark wood lightened around the strings where the picks had scratched and smoothed it over. The young man hadn't really seen the beauty in the instrument, despite its intricate engravings, until after his mother died. Then he began to worship the thing; constantly studying the books his mother bought him along with the guitar to teach himself. So far, he had been poor in his talent, but persistent in his practice. He _had_ found, to his excitement, that he seemed to be able to write pretty good songs. His father made him take piano lessons between the ages of five and fourteen, so he could play the keyboard that sat in the corner of his room quite well, but had no passion for the buck-toothed music maker. The guitar he could move with, he could lie back on his bed, get up and dance (rarely happened, but he had the opportunity to), or he could sit at his desk and write a song as he was doing now.

"Your scent sends me to heaven and your voice saves me from hell…" He rocked back and forth to the tempo he was gradually creating, and then stopped when he registered what he had just said. _Your scent sends me to heaven and your voice saves me from hell?_ What was that? The young man scratched his head and combed his hair behind his ear. That was strange. He wasn't used to a certain system of song writing—he had only been doing it for a few months now—but he found it somewhat confusing. The words and tune were just…coming out. It wasn't even the type of harder rock he usually listened to. It was easy and sounded like it belonged in a café with people tapping their feet softly to the melody and bobbing their heads to the beat. It wasn't the snarling, hair-flipping, microphone-tasting music he was used to hearing run out of his CD player and through his head. It was _easy_—that's the only way he could think of it. Like the type of song a drifter would write for a girlfriend. Hell, it was somewhat intimate.

He had written down a few lines that had been stuck in his head all day before even finding the general tune of the piece. They hadn't startled him as far as their potential style went, they could have been anything. It was the words…that seemed to course down his spine and make him uncomfortable and content at the same time. He had never felt like this before. All of this simply came from a few lines he wrote down before he propped the guitar on his lap. "I once walked alone/ Through my forest/ My home. /But now you walk beside me. /Your eyes are my world/ My sanctuary."

_My forest? My home?_ He had lived in Tokyo his whole life until he graduated, then he moved around trying new things, never quite finding his place, until he ended up here where he lived with a perverted campus shrine keeper. He had only just moved in literally a week ago, but he _did_ feel at home. Something about Miroku kept him sober. No, not in a "don't go out and get plastered way." He had never really been into that scene. He just needed someone about his age to be someone who would leave him alone when need be and provide advice when needed. That was all, and he had decided that for some reason he had a hard time finding someone like that since high school and that was probably why he had lived like a hippy (Mom would be proud) for the past four years, rather than settling down and going to college. _Maybe I will next semester,_ he thought as he pushed his guitar into the empty corner of his room designated specifically for it.

"My forest…home…" he combed his fingers through his long hair. Why did he write such words? He had no one who inspired them: no girlfriend, no best friend from childhood, and certainly no family member to dedicate it to. The damn song was about someone helping him—saving him—but he had never been saved like that before. Although, he probably _needed_ that.

Sliding his pick up and under two strings for safekeeping, he heard a tap at his door. "Yeah?" he responded gruffly.

His roommate, Miroku, peeped his face between the cracked door and it's frame. He smiled and cleared his throat.

"Got something to say or what?"

Miroku smiled wider. "Um…hey. Well, see the thing is that I have this job I need done tonight—a very good man is relying on me to help him out tonight. But…" He seemed to search for the correct words.

"But," the young man responded as he fell onto his bed. "You forgot and made plans?"

The young man in the door way closed his eyes and continued to smile. He raised his left hand to point sheepishly at his right—his dominate hand, the one with the tumor. "Cursed hand…" he chuckled at his joke. "Seems it erased the penciled-in job reminder in my calendar."

Rolling his eyes at the pervert, the songwriter shrugged. "So, what do you want me to do about it? Fill in for you?"

"Come on," Miroku bent slightly and bounced up and down to act out desperation. "I've been trying to get a date with this girl since she first came to the university two years ago."

"Uh-huh."

Miroku's eyes widened. "Would you _mind_?"

"For what?" he laughed. "The date or the job?"

Miroku frowned. "Well, I thought you were done with women for a while after your last fiasco."

He nodded. "So you were only thinking of me when you decided that you should be the one going out tonight. I get it."

"Exactly!"

He lay back on his bed and shifted the pillow's cushioning under his neck. "Sure I'll do it as long as I get paid for it. I could use some cash."

Miroku had opened the door completely and leaned against his roommate's wall with his arms crossed. "Deal, thanks a lot."

"Yeah, yeah." He rolled over in bed to face away from Miroku and watch his wall. It was a light green; if he planned on being there long he may have to paint it. He heard the shrine-boy retreat out of the room. "Hey?"

Miroku stopped, steady so as not to let on his fear that his new friend would decide to bail. "Yes?"

"What kind of job it is?"

He could almost feel the laughter rising in Miroku's chest. "Oh it's just a baby-sitting job. That's all."

The young man on the bed bolted into a stiff sitting position. "A what?"

"You know, baby-sitting. Watching over a little kid? Playing with him?"

In a moment he was nose-to-nose with a growling roommate. "You," he swallowed, "did not tell me it was a _baby-sitting_ job."

Miroku cleared his throat and laughed gently while patting the young man on the shoulder. "Oh yes I did." He grinned. "When you took the time to ask." With that, the shrine-boy was gone.

"Damn it." He groaned.


	4. Sorry

I want to apologize for this here and now. This fan fiction will be unlikely to continue in the future. I would normally never do this, but I have an original story I am writing with a similar concept (nothing at all to do with the series of Inuyasha), and at some point I would like to attempt to publish it along with some other short stories. Publishers are unlikely to invest in anything already free to the public over the internet, so I probably cannot continue this fan fiction beyond this point. This is also why I have never published much of my original writing online, save for poems.

I will leave the three chapters I have up. If I find that I can quickly finish this story with little crossover from the original fiction I am writing, I will surely do this. I wouldn't count on it though.

To my regular readers; I am sorry about this, but I assure you that the original story is more mature and much better than the current fan fiction. If it does ever get published, I will post information about it here. I can promise you that this will not be a normal occurrence for my stories. I like to finish what I start.

"From Another World" is still in progress and coming along well. There will be more fan fiction…oh believe you me, there will be FAN FICTION!


End file.
